


U.N.I

by ZaynZick



Category: One Direction
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-08 07:10:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4295400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaynZick/pseuds/ZaynZick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foreign territory. <br/>Zayn may as well be in a whole other country for all he's concerned. <br/>His tiny dorm room with cracks on the walls and a bed that is even too small for him is all he is becoming familiar with.<br/>That and his overly enthusiastic roomate, Liam. </p>
<p>He expected his first year concerns would be the regular ones. Managing the party lifestyle while still being up in time for class the next morning, training yourself to down 15 cups of coffee in order to stay alert during exam cram sessions in the student union library, and trying to stay afloat ontop of all those student loans he's sure he'll be drowing in.</p>
<p>Never did Zayn think his concerns would be maintainging a long distance relationship with his highschool sweetheart over texts, calls, or skype sessions...or lack there of. Or figuring out how to dodge the friends he accidentally made in order to keep his low profile reputation. Or his biggest concern of all. The boy sleeping across the room from him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fall Semester 2015

**Author's Note:**

> BASED OFF OF RAINBOW ROWELL'S FANGIRL
> 
> This book is based off of Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. Some of the events taken place in this fanfic have been inspired by her novel. The words are my own, but inspired by my favorite author and novel.

There was a girl in his room.

Zayn looked up at the number painted on the door, then down at the paper in his hands, making sure the number matched up with the one on his form.

**Rowell Hall, 515**

Maybe he was in the wrong hall? This was room 515 but all of the dormitories looked the same he could have easily made a wrong turn and ended up in the wrong one. With his luck it wouldn't be doubtful.

"You must be Zayn" The girl stood up from one of the long twin beds, extending her arm out to greet him. 

"Yeah..." Zayn mumbled out before accepting her hand shake. He felt a knot begin to tangle up in his stomach. 

 

This was a mistake, it had to be. Zayn knew this hall was a co-ed dormitory but there was no way -  _no way_ he could have a girl for a roomate. They wouldn't let that happen. _Would they?_

"I'm Sophia" The girl said before turning her attention back to a box on top of, what Zayn was assuming, was her bed. "I figured you're not all that great at meeting people so I thought I'd help you out. This is your first year right?"

Zayn blushed, emabarrassed by his manners or lack there of. "Yeah...sorry this is my first day on campus everything is just very-"

"Overwhelming?" Sophia finished his sentence, much to Zayn's appreciation. He wasn't sure the tangled knot in the pit of his stomach would've calmed down enough for him to muster up a full sentence. 

"That would be the word" Zayn's eyes scanned the room yet again. He quickly began to realize that no matter how many times he looked at the beige walls, the dim window, or the old wooden desks, this place was never going to feel like home. It would be foreign territory for him.

"Do you have any boxes? Or are you going for that whole 'came here with the clothes on my back' type of vibe?" Sophia grinned at him, letting him know that her teasing was meant to be polite. 

"Umm yeah, they're out in the parking lot. I just wanted to make sure I had the right room before bringing up my stuff. This is Rowell Hall right?" A small part, a tiny fraction of Zayn was hoping this was the right hall and that Sophia was in fact his roomate. The thought of going through this awkward introduction again sent a tingling senation up and down his torso and vibration in his finger tips. He could almost feel his throat closing up.

"Yep, Rowell Hall, room 515. This would be the one." The girl was now pulling out flannels and white tee shirts that seemed much to large for her..it appeared to be mens clothing. 

"Ok, well I'm going to go grab some of my boxes. Let's hope I'm able to find my way back." He was only slightly joking. A large part of him was hoping that Sophia would offer to accompany him. In Zayn's mind the likely hood that he actually would get lost, or kidnapped into a faturnity, or even killed was high and something he didn't want to risk.

Sophia lightly laughed, now unpacking jeans from another box, still seeming to be mens clothing. "We'll go with you. I'm almost done with this box if you want to wait a minute. Maybe all three of us can stop to grab a burger after we get you unpacked. How does that sound?"

_All three of them? There's no way there could be a third roomate. Not with this tiny dorm room. I'm not sharing my bed it's already too small for me and I'm tiny-_

Zayn was pulled out of his thoughts as a boy walked into the room. 

The boy walked into the room with a smile so big and bright Zayn wondered two things

1- Does this boys smile act as some sort of a solar device and power the whole campus?

2- How the hell did the smile fit into such a tiny room?

Zayn concentrated hard on not squinting at the boy once his attention was directed at him.

"You must be Zayn!" The boys voice was the overflowed with friendliness and warmness, it almost ticked Zayn off. Zayn could never walk up to a stranger and be so enthusiastic about meeting someone new, especially under these circumstances. 

"I'm Liam, you're roomate" Liam then turned his attention to Sophia, grinned softly to her before flashing his big bright smile at Zayn again. "I see you've met my girlfriend." 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Zayn stood in his dorm room, facing the blank wall, hands searching deep within one of his boxes marked  **CLOTHES** and began to empty out tee shirts and jumpers along with a few pairs of dark skinny jeans. One by one he laid each item out onto his barely-big-enough-for-one bed, he made small piles for each type of clothing, favorite t shirts, which of course included a black tee shirt with the Batman logo on the chest, and then a pile of jumpers that were divided into two categories: when it's kind of cold and when it's really cold. 

The silence in the room almost made him feel at home. Liam and Sophia had gone on their burger run only after Zayn declined Sophia's offer.

"Are you sure, Zayn? Your boxes will still be here when you get back you know." Sophia offered but only recieved another rejection from Zayn.

"I'm sure, I'll go down to the dining room later and grab something, I can't eat if I know there's something more important to get done." 

This was only partly true, he really couldn't eat if he knew there was about five boxes on his bed that needed to be sorted out, but the real reason had been standing three feet away. 

"I can always help you out when we get back, I love helping people. I wanted to be a firefighter you know, but my mum thought that was too dangerous so she-" Liam's sentence was cut off by the daggers Sophia was shooting him with her eyes. For the first time since arriving into their room Liam had stopped smiling. Well he was still smiling just a smaller smile, a tiny baby smile compared to his usually one that takes up his whole face and makes his eyes little dark lines. 

"That's alright, I can get this done on my own, it's fine really. You two go enjoy yourselves." Zayn turned his attention back to the boxes they helped him hall in from his car. "Thanks again for helping me bring these in." He didn't want them to think he was a complete jerk who was only sort of nice for a few minutes just so they'd bring in his boxes for him.

"Alright, well, I'll see you around." Sophia was already half way out the door, but Liam was still standing three feet away from Zayn. 

"Should I bring you back a burger? The place we're going to has a mean bacon cheeseburger, it's the best burger I've ever had. Wait-no, that's lie. There's this place back home in Wolverhampton-"

"Liam!" Sophia called through the hallway "you're talking that poor boy to death, leave him alone already."

Zayn turned away from his boxes to look at Liam, who's smile had yet again shrinked down to half the size it was before. Zayn hadn't realized how much Liam resembled a puppy until he witnessed Liam mutter a small "I'll see you later" before walking out of the room with his head hanging down slightly. 

From the hallway Zayn could hear Sophia scold Liam "What did I tell you, babe? Not everyone wants to hear your stories..." her words got fainter as they walked away from the door.

Zayn finished hanging up his clothes before going over to the next box marked  **PERRIE.** He smiled fondly as he opened it, the first item he spotted a a framed picture of the two of them. It was their prom picture. Zayn remembered that night perfectly, it was awful. 

Well the beginning was awful, they had an arguement because the tie Zayn had wasn't "the right pink" and their reservation at a restaurant had fallen through, and Perrie was upset that he hairdresser didn't do her hair "just like the picture". But the dance itself was better, Zayn remembered Perrie dragging him out to the dancefloor despite all of his protests, but he ended up awkwardly doing as little as he could, little enough where you almost had to question if he was actually dancing or just standing there. But it was a good night over all.

Zayn grabbed the picture on settled it down on his desk in hopes that this piece of home would make the room feel even more like a livable space. 

He hadn't actually talked to Perrie in a few days. She left for her university a couple of days prior to the day he left. They had the standard "Do we want to do the whole long distance thing" conversation and they both agreed that their relationship would be worth the effort. They had been together all through highschool afterall. But Zayn was assuming that doing the whole long distance thing required that they actually talked. 

He searched for his phone on the bed and once he spotted it he decided to send Perrie a text. He thought, for a brief moment, about calling her but decided he wouldn't want it to turn into one of those phone calls that lasted hours, then again they hadn't had a phone call like that since the beginning of their relationship.

Zayn unlocked his phone and opened their text thread. 

The last message was sent by him: **Call me when you get there, love you loads :) xx**

Perrie hadn't called. But she did post a picture on her instagram of her with three other girls who Zayn assumed all lived in the same hall as her, she made friends a lot faster than Zayn could.

The message Zayn sent read:  **I've been here a bit longer than an hour and I've already got so much to tell you. I don't have a good feeling about my roomate, call me so I can tell you all about it. Hope you're having a good time, missing you lots xx** **  
**

He set his phone down next to the prom picture before sitting down on his bed. He waited a few minutes, trying to hear a ping sound come from his phone, or the vibration against the desk. But after twenty minutes he got up and began to empty out the rest of his boxes. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

By the time Liam had returned back to their dorm room Zayn was already completely unpacked. His clothes were hung up and tucked away into his closet, his overpriced textbooks were sorted and put up on his bookshelf, and he even had some of his posters along with a few pieces of art up on his side of the room. 

Zayn hadn't even noticed Liam's return, he was off in his own world. Earphones in, music blaring and nose tucked into a comic book. It wasn't until Liam tapped Zayns head that he finally looked up and saw the human teddy bear right in front of him.

"I'm home," Liam said this as if Zayn was clueless or blind or both. "I'm sorry to interupt but I just wanted to make sure you made your way down to the dining room. I don't want you to starve, then I'd be left without a roomate which wouldn't be as fun as having a roomate." Zayn begged to differ. He sat up from his comfortable position on his bed and pulled out his earphones, he had barely heard what Liam had said.

"Yeah I made it to dinnner, I'm fine thanks" That was a lie. After Zayn finished up backing and had his side of the room decorated as closely to his room back home as possible he had dipped into his stash under his bed. His mom had packed him a box of goodies to tide him over during study sessions. The box contained two boxes of rits crackers and a jar of peanut butter. Zayn had downed a pack of crackers and had made a dent in the jar. He was hoping he wouldn't have to leave his room, other than obviously going to class and to use the restroom, he deciding to just set up camp on this side of the room and count down the days until he gets to go back home.

"What'd you have? Because I promise you it was no where near as good as the burgers me and Soph had. I'm not kidding you mate, they run a mean competition to the ones we got back in Wolverhampton. Sophia would probably argue with me there but she's no expert-"

"And you are?" Zayn didn't mean that. Well he didn't mean to say it outloud. He slowly glanced up to Liam's face, hoping to not see his smile shrinking. 

It wasn't. If anything it was the opposite.

"You bet I am. You can just call me burger boy. Anytime you want to go out for a burger feel free to come to this side of the room and I'll have you set. Do you think I could make a career of that? Some sort of burger enthusist? I should trademark Burger Boy while I can, do you reckon someone already beat me to it?" Liam was practically giddy. over burgers. 

_This kid is my roomate. I'm going to deal with him the whole year. Damnit._

"Umm no, I doubting someone has trademarked that." Zayn tried to cut off the conversation by glancing back at his comic book and slowly inserting his earphones back in.

"Whatcha reading there? You like comic books? That's quite cool mate, I'm quite the fan of super heroes. All that you know. My absolute favorite has to be Batman though, he's a madman. The best one out there honestly." 

Zayn's eyes darted up when he said that last bit. "I think you're mistaken. The Green Lantern has got him beat by a long way." He immediately regretted this. He could practically see Liam preparing  himself mentally, physically and emotionally to begin a talking marathon. He could see his eyes light up and his smile grow even wider.

_Why the hell is this guy smiling when I just disagreed with him? I'd be ready to argue._

"Is he your favorite? The Green Lantern? He's quite cool too." Liam moved back to his side of the room and sat on his bed still facing Zayn, letting him know that the conversation wasn't over, far from actually. "Do you not like batman?" 

"Batman is quite sick" Zayn motioned to a batman doodle he had made the previous year that was now hanging on his side of the wall. "I've also got a few of his comics along with a tee shirt." 

Liam stood back up and made his way back to Zayn's side of the wall. Zayn had never seen anyone look that fascinated. With a doodle. Let alone his own doodle. 

"You made that? That looks really good. Like really really really good." Liam's eyes flickered over to the other artwork posted alongside the batman one. "Did you make all of these?" 

Zayn smiled for the first time that day. "Yeah, I did. That batman one was from last year, the one next to it is supposed to be Bob Marley. I know it doesn't look a lot like him but I liked the colors so I figured it was good enough-" Zayn's voice trailed off. He was beginning to feel embarrassed and not as proud as he used to be of his artwork.

"It looks like him what are you talking about? And the colors go together really well. I heard that some colors go better together than others do, like there's some sort of study on it or something. Like complementary colors I think it is, I wouldn't know though. I'm no artist. I can probably manage a stick figure at best, you'd make me look like a complete fool. You're really talented you know." Liam flashed his smile at Zayn before turning back to the wall, still gazing with so fascination.

Zayn didn't know what to say. No one had ever really bothered with his artwork. He would come home and spend hours drawing in his room but keep it hidden to himself. One year, for his anniversary with Perrie, he had made her a picture of them two together. She said it was "good" and hung it up on her wall in her room but didn't say much else. This was the first time someone had ever shown any appreciation for Zayn's work before. It was new to him.

"Thank you," He finally mustered up, realizing it had been a good minute of silence. "And yeah back at my old school we studied a color wheel, the colors across from it usually were the best pairing."

"Opposites attract." Liam offered with a grin. He took a step back and scanned his eyes over Zayn's wall before giving an approving nod. "Makes sense. You should draw me something sometime. If you want. Maybe you could make me my own batman doodle," Suddenly Liam's eyes practically bulged out of his head, he looked like he had the worlds greatest idea. Better than trademarking burger boy. "You should draw me AS batman! Imagine how amazing that would be! Not even joking here that would be a dream come true. A childhood dream of mine would be made" 

Zayn was a bit taken back when Liam began to shout, he hadn't had to many experiences with excited shouting,  _happy_ shouting. It was a pleasent experience. He settled on the idea that everything Liam does it was be  _happy._

"That could be fun, yeah. I could use more practice drawing realistic people." Zayn offered.

"You do you mean you could use more practice? You're mad, look at the work you've done before!" Liam gestured to the wall yet again. "You're a pro. I would really appreciate man, I'd hang it up right here," He walked to his side of the room and smacked the wall located next to his bed. "right there, right in the center for everyone to see. We'll make our room into your own mini art gallery."

Zayn laughed but then realized Liam wasn't joking. Of course that wasn't going to happen but he didn't want to kill the fire in Liam's eyes. He didn't want to be the reason for Liam's smile to shrink  down, he didn't want to hurt him.

"Yeah, we'll do that." Zayn finally agreed.

"What's your last name? Mine's Payne by the way. Liam James Payne is my full name." Liam was still as giddy as a child. Eye's still blazing. Smiling still shining.

"Malik. Zayn Javadd Malik, that's my full name."

"The Malik Art Gallery," Liam said after a moment of what appeared to be some seriously difficult thinking. "We're going to have some fun, you and I." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read the first couple of chapters!   
> Feedback would be greatly appreciated :) also every hit and every kudo makes my day so thank you once again for reading! It means alot.  
> Please leave me any suggestions, as said before I'd love some feedback.   
> Comments, compliments or critisism is welcomed :)


	4. Chapter 4

_Tap, tap, tap_ Zayn tapped his pen against the desk. A few of his classmates turned to give him annoyed glances, which made him settle his pen down against the desk. Too bad he couldn't settle himself down. 

He found himself in the middle of the room, he thought that if he showed up earlier he could get a seat in the back of the class but much to his disappointment many other first year students had the same idea. So now he was twenty minutes early for class with about a dozen other nervous wrecks. The only bright side to this situation was that he knew he had no problem fitting in with this group.

Glancing around the lecture hall, he saw a blackboard straight ahead, many open seats further up in the class and a desk that undoubtedly belonged to the professor. 

_Keep your head down, pay attention, take notes and study._

This was his philosophy and it got him all through his school days, it got him through unnoticed, but he made it out on the other side with high enough marks to get a scholarship that would provide him to do this same at this university.

"Do you have an extra one of those?" 

Zayn snapped out of his trance, he didn't realize that he had been staring at the blackboard or that he had once again begun to smack his pen against his desk. He also hadn't realized that a girl had sat in front of him and was now talking to him.

"Sorry?" Zayn could feel his face flush, he wanted to bury his head inside his backpack like an ostrich would bury their head in the sand.

"Do you have an extra pen I could borrow? I just looked over the syllobus and I only have red pens but says here we need black or blue." the girl pointed down at Zayn's pen, her face was also flushed. 

_Why is she embarrassed? I was the one who was practically drooling staring at a board..._

"Ummm let me check," Zayn pulled open his pencil case and pulled out a spare black ink pen "here you can keep it."

The girl smiled and took the pen from Zayn's grasp before giggling "That's the cutest thing" 

Zayn was genuinely confused as to what she was talking about, he was tempted to turn around and see if an attractive guy was what had her eye but then he looked down at his pencil case and realized why she had laughed.

"oh, yeah my mum got this for me." Zayn quickly hid his teenage mutant ninja turtle pencil case back in his bag. He could feel his whole face on fire, even his fingers were beginning to shake.

"were you a big fan as a kid? I have a brother who was just obsessed" the girl offered a smile, noticing Zayns humilation.

"Yeah, except I was the only boy so I rarely got to watch. I have three sisters so it was more disney princesses than ninjas." 

The girl giggled again "I only have the one brother so it was pretty evened out but there was definitely still some full on brawls over the tv remote." 

"At least it was a fair fight, try three against one." 

"Well if you ever need someone on your team I'd be more than happy to help you out" The girl grinned at him before turning back around in her seat.

_Was she flirting with me? What did she mean when she said that last bit? She just felt sorry for me...wait- if she was flirting does that count at cheating? Why hasn't Perrie called-_

Zayn's thoughts were cut off by a professor entering the room and summoning all of the students attention.

Paying attention wasn't so easy this time.

***********

 

After class Zayn began his journey back to his dorm room, it wasn't really a long journey but to someone like Zayn who barely got up from bed it may as well be a marathon. It was still reletively warm out, it was just the last days of August. He only remembered this because Liam had woken up every morning and checked off a day from his calendar that was labeled **_LIAMS BIRTHDAY_**  !!!Zayn stopped at a bench along the way to peal off his hoodie, he had no clue why he had decided on wearing this when he saw his roomate leave for class in a muscle tee.   


As Zayn pulled the hoodie up over his head he felt a sudden jab at his ribs, causing him to quickly remove his hoodie and and smack about whoevers hand had invaded his personal space.

"Woah there, didn't mean to freak you out," A blonde boy was standing in front of him now, Zayn recognized him from somewhere he just couldn't put his finger on it. "I was just wondering if you had the last half of the notes. I clocked out about twenty minutes in honestly. That professor has the most boring voice of all time, she basically put me to sleep herself so she can't go around blaming me." 

This was the blonde boy that has sat next to Zayn during the lecture, he could remember now becaue he recognized his hair. It looked different now, before it was laid out against the desk and he had his head resting on the surface, now Zayn knew that it was because he had fallen asleep at the beginning of the lecture. 

The blonde boy extended his hand to Zayn, "I'm Niall, the sleeping boy who sat next to you during Mrs. Borings lecture." 

Zayn offered his hand to Niall, "I'm Zayn" 

Niall looked down at Zayn's hand, "Are you sure you want me to shake that one?"

Zayn's face began to burn until he realized what Niall was actually getting at. The girl who sat infront of them, the girl who had confused Zayn, the girl who could have quite possibly been flirting with Zayn, had written her phone number on his palm along with her name. 

Niall smirked, "Nice job with that, she's cute. What's her name?" He reached for Zayn's arm and yanked it closer in order to read the name printed on his skin. "Rosie. I wish I would've made it to class earlier, maybe I would've been the one with her number." 

"Maybe you should've stayed awake through class too, maybe you would've had the notes." Zayn was just annoyed now. Niall had invaded his personal space twice, made advances in his private life and already made Zayn think he was going to be a liability during class all within five minutes. 

_I'm going to have this kid sleeping next to me, asking for notes, touching me and getting into my business everyday now._

"Sorry, there was a crazy party last night. You should've been there-" Niall squinted at Zayn, "Were you there?" 

Zayn gave him the dirtiest look he could manage, hoping it would give Niall the hint to back off already.

"Honestly I can't remember too much about last night, that's why I ask. Can I take a peak at your notes." Niall asked once again, completely ignoring the looks Zayn was shooting at him.

"So you were hungover too?" Zayn decided that if Niall was going to throw himself in his business he would return the favor. But at the same time he already had his backpack on the bench and was digging his notes out to hang over to Niall. 

_Liam's niceness is rubbing off on me already_

"Only a bit. I don't get too wild, at least before the first day of class," Once Zayn had retrieved his notes from his binder Niall snatched them out of his hands. "Thanks so much for this by the way, I'll make it up to you. You're coming to the next party with me."

"No it's fine, just try to stay awake next time ok?

"You got it, don't even worry about it. What hall do you live in?" Zayn had tried to walk away but Niall made sure he was right by his side.

Zayn sighed as he realized he wasn't going to be getting rid of him anytime soon. "Rowell Hall."

"Nice! Me too, hey we can walk together to and from class now." 

"Great."

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to anyone expecting more Ziam in this chapter. There will be soon! I just want to introduce some new characters. Niall is in the mix now! yay :D also Rosie will be quite involved, but more on that later :)  
> Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

Liam was sat out in the hallway right outside their door when Zayn finally reached their shared dorm room.

"You do realize this is your room too, right?" Zayn mumbled before taking out his key and unlocking it so both the boys could enter. 

"I think I misplaced mine. I thought I had it on me when I left for class this morning but I guess I left it on my nightstand. Have you seen it? Hey, how was your first class? The professor you had isn't all that bad. I had her my first year as well. Passed with a B, I'm quite pleased with that grade" By the time Liam finished speaking, Zayn had already tossed his backpack onto the floor next to his bed and had kicked off his sneakers while reaching for his earbuds that he left on his comforter. 

"It was ok. And no I haven't seen your key." Zayn spoke quietly, it was barely audible even in such a small room. Liam was only a few feet away and he could barely make out his soft voice. 

Liam was now laid out on his bed, smiling up at...god only knows but to Zayn as far as he could tell the kid was just smiling up at the ceiling for the hell of it. 

"That's alright, I guess I'll just have to wait out in the hall for you everyday. And just 'ok'? Did you make any new friends? There's lot of friendly faces around campus."

Zayn repressed the urge to say _'_ _yeah maybe for you there is'_ but opted to just keep his thoughts to himself and instead forced himself into polite small talk. Sure he and Liam had one night of bonding but now Zayn was regretting it entirely. Everyday since then, Liam had treated Zayn as if he was his bestfriend in the whole world. He treated him like Zayn was some sort of fresh meat on campus that needed to be protected every second of every day. He treated him like  _charity._ At least that's how Zayn felt. _  
_

"Umm not really," Zayn decided to tell Liam of the sleeping blonde boy "but there's this one kid. He slept all through the lecture and then asked me if I could lend him my notes. He lives in this hall too so he wants us to walk to and from class from now on." 

Liam turned on his side so he could look at Zayn intently, "Did you lend him your notes?"

Zayn answered with a soft nod before throwing himself onto his bed, avoiding looking back at Liam and instead staring at the ceiling just as his roomate had been doing before. Just minus the glowing smile.

Even though he wasn't anywhere near him, or even looking at him for gods sake, Zayn could feel Liam smiling. It was as if Liam's smile sent off heat waves and now the side of Zayns body that was closets to Liam was warming up. Even from across a room, Liam's presence was unmistakable... 

"You're so nice Zayn, very giving, very thoughtful..." Liam's voice began to trail off towards the end. Zayn _wanted_ so badly to turn to his roomate, and he hated himself for it. Part of him wanted to look over to see if Liam had spotted something shiny and had lost focus of his conversation or if he was just messing with him. 

So Zayn continued to stare up at the ceiling, a frown had formed on his face, it probably looked as if he had spotted the most disgusting bug on earth on that ceiling. But he just didn't want to look at Liam, and most importantly,  _he didn't want to listen to what he had to say about him._

"It was just some notes, mainly the course schedule for the semester. Not like I gave him a kidney." you could hear the discomfort in Zayn's voice, discomfort mixed with irritation. 

But this was two feelings Liam was clearly unfamiliar with. "But small gestures make up the biggest part of someone. At least in my opinion. Something big, like giving someone a kidney, that's so big that all of these factors come into play. It becomes something where everyone is watching, and judging. All thinking 'is he going to give away a kidney? If he doesn't he's a jerk and an asshole' plus all of these morals like helping out someone else in need. someone who needs something more than you do and being in the means to be able to help out. If you can help and decide not to that's frowned up. But something little like giving someone your notes, there was no audience, there were no major morals coming into play, you did it because you wanted to. Because you could help out and you did. That's why you're so nice." 

Zayn couldn't help himself. He turned so that he was now facing Liam. Looking at his roomate he could tell he was in deep thougt, as if he had mulled over this topic in his mind a million times and was still sorting out the pieces to the puzzle. _Someone like Liam_ , Zayn thought, _should have no problem sorting out what kindness truly is_.

"Is that how you are?" Zayn whispered, not wanting to cross into this territory, not wanting to really be heard. "you seem like the definition of kindness."

For a moment Zayn almost rolled back over to face the wall on the other side of his bed, he thought Liam hadn't heard him, he thought Liam had difted far off into thought. So far he lost touch with what or who was around him.

"I'm not." Liam finally spoke. This was the first time Zayn had hear his voice sound like this, so soft and gentle. Almost breakable. "I try very hard to be nice. Smiling and talking to everyone. But that's just because I don't want anyone else to feel the way I do..." 

Liam had rolled over onto his back and was once again staring up at the ceiling but this time, there was no smile. He wasn't staring up as if he was looking up to blue skies and sunshine all laced up together with a rainbow, he was looking up at the ceiling like he was looking at what it really was. A dull, gray, cracked ceiling. 

Zayn sat up on his bed, wanting to catch a better glimpse of his roomates face, because he couldn't recognize him this way. This Liam wasn't smiling, this Liam wasn't upbeat and chatting away about nonsense that didn't really matter but was somehow simultaneously so captivating you just couldn't look away, this Liam wasn't Liam. 

"how do you feel?" Zayn could practically feel himself step over some invisible line that was drawin right down the middle of their dorm room. An invisible line that came with all sorts of unspoken rules and a contract that they both signed without realizing that the person on the other side wasn't just a roomate for the year, but a person.

Liam must have felt someone attempting to cross over the unspoken line, because suddenly he jolted up from his coma like position on his bed and was softly smiling at Zayn again. "I feel like we should explore the campus. You've barely left this room since you've been here. I reckon going to class was the first time you've actually left this hall in a good while. I can introduce you to some of my friends and we can head down to the dining hall for lunch." 

"I think I'll stay in. I want to go over the syllabus for my other classes before they come up. But you should go out if you want to." he didn't know how to react. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to go along with Liam's sudden jolt of giddiness or if he was supposed to press him and to spill what was really going on. 

"oh, are you sure?" Liam was still smiling but there was a light that was missing from his eyes. And he was looking at Zayn as if he not only needed his help finding his keys but as if he needed his help in general. _Like he needed him._

"On second thought, maybe it is a good idea for me to explore the campus. I had a bit of difficulty finding the right builing today." Zayn stood up from his bed and reached for his sneakers before looking back up at Liam who was smiling a bit more like himself. 

"Great! Do you have your key? I haven't spotted mine yet." Liam took a quick glance around his side of the room, even shuffling around his duvet in hopes that it'd fumble out between the sheets.

Zayn patted his pocket, double checking for his key which was safely tucked away. "Yeah I've got mine don't worry. I've got you." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're all enjoying this! I'm enjoying writing this very much to be honest :)   
> There's more Ziam coming up quicker than i anticipated but i couldn't help it! I wasn't planning on this it just happened haha! :D anyways I'll be introducing more characters in the next chapters and maybe there will be a bit more Ziam (most likely) and always remember every kudo means the world to me and all comments are taken into consideration and are deeply appreciated :) thank you!


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